930 Mass Effect.

I have, via various methods, obtained all but one Skylander. I haven’t had time enought to play the game in a while, yet my obsessive quest continues. I could have got the final figure in a 3 pack, but, for whatever reason, I drew the line at buying doubles of 2 figures. I think mostly because I know how long it takes me to actually go to ebay and sell something.

Ebay, since its inception, has been a tedious place. The system itself is not so bad but, as is often the case, the people are what makes ebay a tad insufferable. There are still people who stick the word LOOK in the title of their sale. It was a bullshit move in 1994 and it remains one to this day. Just tell me what the fucking thing is that you are selling. Don’t get cute about it… Also, if there are 300 listings for the product you are selling, there is a chance it isn’t RARE. It’s ridiculous how irritated that shit makes me.

Anyway, when I say I lack one Skylander I seriously mean one. I even found all the legendaries without having to pay the after market mark up. I have every thing a person can have for the game, save for truly rare oddities. Like the preorder bonus from Best Buy, or whatever it is, and the various crystal, flocked, or sugar coated versions of certain charaters. Spyro and Legendary Spyro are the only truly redundant characters. In the 3DS version of the game Dark Spyro actually plays differently, so he feels like a different character. I appreciate this. It was a nice touch. I’m not sure if he’s actually different in the console version. I haven’t played it with him enough to know.

In any case, the toy I lack is Camo. I suspect I’ll run across him eventually. The stores around here are saturated with earier waves at the moment, so it may take some time for the last ones to appear. Of course I may find it online before then. As sad as the service and prices at Toys R Us are they have been good about getting in all the figures eventually.

In spite of how much that farce has been dominating my activities what I’m really excited about is Pokemon Conquest. Followed closely by the GOTY Batman Arkham City, which was at the store today, but I did not purchase it. I’m going to have to pick that one up new, because I’m not tracking down the DLC seperately. Not after the Mass Effect 2 debacle.

Speaking of Mass Effect… I still haven’t played 3, but I’ve managed to remain unspoiled somehow. I keep expecting people to just randomly blurt out shit like GARRUS DIES! Of course some of that stuff may not happen in all playthroughs, so even then if people talk about the game it’s sometimes like they didn’t even play the same one. I think that’s neat.

I also still haven’t seen The Avengers, but it won’t even show up here till the first. No spoilers there either, apart from the stuff in the commercials, which is bad enough.

@Perfesser_Bear – Greta Gravity is safe for work, actually. She’s a character in a webcomic called ‘Spinnerette’. There’s really nothing that would classify it as NSFW, so just look up the webcomic and start reading.

Well… I work for an insurance company on the East coast. Conservative is the name of the game — they’ve been around since 1866 (yeah, almost 150 years) and they’re now owned by a larger German corporation (very stuffy).

I have to be a little conscious about what I have up on my screens at all times — web comics aren’t exactly frowned upon, but anything that could be construed as sexist (e.g., megaboobage) could land me in hot water. Even Between Failures taps the bell sometimes (think: Shower Scene. I’m way too old to be seeking other employment…

You won’t have come across this one with figures that come complete out of the box, but one of the most irritatingly abused words on eBay is “pro-painted.” That model was not painted by a professional. It was painted by a cack-handed twit with limited grasp of the concept of colour.

Even the sellers are becoming aware of how little it means, so the equally empty “master-painted” is seeing a rise in popularity.

Oh god, this! I used to be into monster figure kits, and the reliability of the phrase “pro painted” being linked with models that look like they were painted by a six year old with a Testors beginner brush & paint set was amazing.

…Which only makes it worse, because then it tells you the seller is not only a crappy painter, but a clueless/un-savvy marketer as well.

You’re smart to not waste that much money on the DLC for Arkham City. However, I think the best you’re gonna get is the one that comes with Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing, not the new DLC. You might just need to shell out for that one.

And I’ve already got Pokemon Conquest preordered. Since I have a gamestop card, I even get a handful of mons free, so I think that’s a plus.

The only thing I’ll say about Mass Effect 3 is that when The Thing with Shep and Anderson on the Citadel happens, you should pretend the game ends there instead of ten minutes later. Because as it stands, that last ten minutes is horrible.

If you turn off your non-sequitor filter, the last few minutes of Mass Effect 3 are visually very pretty (e.g well-made, but not well-written), however, if you cannot do that, it will cause a duty-cycle overload and frustrate you to such a degree that you are prone to fits of incoherent babbling when you try to reconcile the previous 99% of the game (and two previous games) with the ending. That being said, Mass Effect 3 is, in my opinion, a very worthwhile gaming experience, and I plan to keep playing it. Also, the co-op multiplayer is a very fun, and addictive, addition to the game if you like that sort of thing (which I do). :)

Semi-lie. She has a boyfriend, they’re just keeping it under wraps for their work related associates. And maybe some other purposes.

I don’t know if I’m excited about Pokemon Conquest yet, or not. For a long while I’ve thought they need to break away from the handheld exclusive market and do something that ties all the lore/continents/whatever-you-want-to-call-the-nearly-two-decades-of-pokemon-related-new-things-happening together. Get rid of the rare exclusives available only through events and cheats (especially for those of us in the middle of nowhere, unlikely to get to the whatever hidden poke-beast free giveaway), or make it accessible (if hard to get) in game, and do something to make the high end level grind (from about 80 to 100) less tedious.

Then again, I’ll probably buy the thing, anyway. I am nothing if not obsessive, and if that at the least 47% compulsive…

At least the DS games got a little better about it, since you could download most of the stuff if you knew when it was being offered. It was still limited by time and you were pretty much screwed if you missed it, but it was better than hearing that the only people who got Mew were in New York.

In all honesty, they did try to break away from the handheld market with Colosseum and XD. The problem is that nobody really took a good bite.

I’d agree about the grind, but few pokemon really use the levels beyond 50-60, much less in the 80s. The big perk for hitting 100 is if you’re competing against other people or bragging that you got to level 100.

Not sure if I’m excited about Conquest either. It sounds like something I may have been asking for for years, but none of the information I can find really confirms or denies it and hasn’t really gotten me excited about it.

I’ve read so much manga, seen so much anime, HELL I’ll say it, seen enough hentai, to safely say, I’m immune to ogling cartoon boobs. I’d read manga at school, and the “those people” (insert opposite scale of school clicks) would pass by and go, “Dood! That chick is totally naked! Where did you get those, man? They sell those to kids?” And I roll my eyes and go “yeah, they do, because it’s not a real person, and therefore, not porn. Besides who cares, most of these have seens like this, nothing special.”. |:/ Normies. Pft.

Real ones on the other hand. *totally not making himself look good*
Don’t judge, I’m a recluse, I don’t see people very often. I live under a rock!

I can see what you mean otherwise though. Manga and Anime have pushed nudity a little further in some cases than some western comics and cartoons have. And that immunity’s real shame too. Not being able to see characters who were designed to be enticing as such seems like a disappointing immunity to develop.

Yeah, the wife and I are still hunting the last Skylanders. A friend found Warnado for us, but we’re still looking for Camo and Wham Shell. It’s gona be awhile ’cause we’re just tired of looking, so we’re only checking when we’re out shopping.

As for Dark Spyro: he’s exactly the same as normal and legendary Spyro on the console, which was a little disappointing.

Ha. You’ve nailed the two things I hate about eBay users: the LOOK, usually spelled LQQK! or L@@K! — like bad spammers, trying to beat the filters (sorry, V!agra and C1alis aren’t going to make it, either, and neither is R0lex). And the other is RARE!!! (you forgot the triple exclamation point).

Try looking for Walt Kelly’s Pogo products on eBay. We’re told copies of the Okefenokee Star are RARE! I have the complete set, all purchased on the first tries. Likewise the plastic figurines (Proctor and Gamble gave them away free in boxes of laundry detergent throughout 1969 — I’d have a bunch of ‘em but Mom didn’t use Biz). The plastic drinking mugs are the same story — I’ve seen beaten up, almost illegible copies listed upward of $100 — given away with fill-ups at gas stations. Either prize actually sells around $5, with complete sets of 5 or 6 selling around $25 to $30.

Relatively rare are the Wade ceramic figurines: $150 to $600. When Walt Kelly received the first ones in 1959, he broke their heads off. Poynter tried later with larger, fur-trimmed plastic models (5½ – 7 inches) to go with a television special — Kelly rejected them and stopped the production run — but there are still some available (at a price: $100 and up).

I don’t understand this LOOK and RARE!!! bit. Is there a problem with having these words in the title. I know I’ve seen “RARE!!!” everywhere in a few. Does it do something to the site’s search calculations?

I don’t often visit Ebay, as I don’t have paypal or money to buy things with, but this is interesting so I am curious.

It’s less a simple usage problem so much as an overuseage problem. Say if I were trying to sell a bi-centennial U.S. Quarter. It’s not exactly common any longer, but it isn’t rare enough to be called Rare (let alone RARE!!!), so adding the word rare to the description is misleading. In fact, misleading at best and an outright lie (When I’m forced into the public at work, I generally have two or three pass my hands in a week. Probably more that I don’t notice, but they’re still in circulation. My boss, however, gets paid with an 1886 Silver Dollar…. For face value of the coin… And the damn thing was barely circulated before that point… Why can’t I get paid in hundred plus year old coins in near mint condition???

As for Look… It is used in lieu of fancy fonts, colored text, logos, and other advertising tricks. The main difference being that no variation of look has the same effect. And that’s assuming LOOK is used in conjunction with some form of descriptive that explains what the auction actually is (which is not nearly often enough the case).

At any rate, E-Bay, being basically public use, has its fair share of idiots all trying the same tricks. It’s gotten worse with ‘buy me now’, and I avoid it where possible anymore. Also, the mini-rant about the old coin was a bonus. Hope I otherwise answered your question.

Yeah, it’s basically Sturgeon’s Law applied to advertising. Even people who do ad copy for a living turn out bad ads pretty often, so just imagine how appallingly crap the bottom 90% is when it’s amateur night.

Picture a marketplace flooded with sellers that make used car salesmen who yell into their cousin’s borrowed camera and call it a TV commercial look like James Cameron.

Good GOD I have to read these things more often. I am stealing that last analogy there for daily use, but replacing Cameron with a different director. Maybe John Ford, Coppola, Hitchcock, or maybe even Scorsese. You know, someone who didn’t re-release their big money maker only now in 3-gimmick.

(all bitter hatred toward people I mostly haven’t met aside, great analogy, probably going to forget to attribute it to you when I misquote it frequently. Nothing personal there, I just refuse to attribute to an assumed moniker.)

Hey, just wanted to let you know (and I know you are a long way from colorado springs) but there was a Camo/Warnado/Ignitor set just hanging out in a best buy here today. And some of the more rare ones are starting to show up a bit, so you may just want to keep an eye out at targets and toys ‘r us.